Obsession
by EN79
Summary: Took him long enough. Satoshi/Houtarou. Implied Houtarou/Eru.


Fukube Satoshi is a man of extremes. He's not the person Oreki Houtarou is, who can (_and wants to, why does he want to_) deal with a grey-coloured life. With him, everything is either rose-coloured,

or blue. A deep, sinking blue.

If black-or-white thinking were charisma, he'd have it in spades.

He knows too much to get anywhere. That's his calling card, his fall-back when people ask too much and look at him the wrong way. Nobody (_plus one_) wants to pry at him, the way Chitanda does Houtarou, so he pries himself open and offers his data to the world, no charge, no fee. It gets him attention, but not in the way he wants.

How long does it take the average person to ignore a rolling camera?

He says too little that could help him with this. For all the things that could get Houtarou going, he still has a hard time believing it's an "_I'm curious!_" Part of him finds it funny. Another part of him hates it, because for all the years and all the says they've been together, nothing he's said has ever made Houtarou react like that before.

If he said it in English, would that make a difference?

He knows too little of what actually matters. If this were a detective novel, he feels like he and Houtarou would be the two halves of Sherlock Holmes. There's him, the half that knows everything they need to succeed―and then there's Houtarou, who has the brains and the guts to actually take that first step. Satoshi is smarter than him; there's no doubt about it.

But what's useless trivia when you don't even know how to use it?

He says too much that means nothing at all. Houtarou is so immersed in his own world that Satoshi's afraid he'll get trapped there, sometimes. So he talks. He never stops talking, because when Houtarou actually acknowledges what he says, it makes him angry and happy and feel too many conflicting emotions at once.

Does he ever stop thinking?

He gets nowhere. Being in so many clubs at once means constantly playing catch-up. It doesn't matter how well he can manage his time; he's always missed something. He's out pricking his fingers with needles when Chitanda is pressing herself close to Houtarou.

Is it crazy if he thinks he'll wander in one day and find them getting married?

He misses his chance. Satoshi doesn't miss much, but then again, neither does Houtarou. It starts with Houtarou signing up for the Classics Club on his own. It keeps going, like a slow-rolling boulder down a hill, and soon enough he's actually wasting energy trying to help other people. He missed his chance to be the one to get it rolling, is all.

What if he wanted it to slow down?

He learns, but not what he needs to. He has the kind of mind most people are envious of, where he can absorb anything and everything. In middle school, it gets to be too much. He learns that the only way to kick the frustration is to chase after an impossible goal. He doesn't learn that he could be satisfied, if he really wanted to be.

Where did he get that idea, anyway?

He runs out of things to say. It happens, on those later afternoons in the Geology Prep room when it's just him and Houtarou. It's the cloud he carries with him, the oppressive silence that wrings out people's thoughts and feelings and hangs them up to dry. Friends should be comfortable with silence, but when it falls, Satoshi feels like tearing at his hair.

Who was it that came up with the idea of "comfortable silence?"

He knows―_what it's like to stand beside Houtarou and still be in his shadow_―too much.

He says―_"I'm jealous," when he really means it_―too little.

He knows―_how it would feel to look Houtarou in the eyes and say, "No"_―too little.

He says―_"I'm jealous," but not when he means it_―too much.

He gets nowhere (_with Houtarou, with himself, because spinning your wheels means nothing if you're not on the ground_).

He misses his chance (_to slide his hand under the table and into Houtarou's; to catch his eyes across the room before Chitanda does; to_―).

He learns, but not what he needs to (_do to make things stop, pause for one second, because this is going too fast_).

He runs out of things to say.


End file.
